Here be dragons. Wait, how did we end up in Orkney?Image via wikimedia

For those of you lucky enough not to know, the 'Friend Zone' is purportedly the place where a gentleman goes if his romantic advances are rebuffed by a lady of his acquaintance***. Here he can listen to her complaints about all the inferior specimens she dates, yearn and write bad poetry.

Relationships are complex, many stranded connections built up between two people. Sometimes it seems like all the threads are there, but it just won't knot. That is rubbish. It's horrible when your expectations and desires don't tally with someone who means a lot to you. I know, I've been there too.

However, here is the thing. The world is made up of you and many other people. Each person is the protagonist of their own story, with their own hopes and dreams and desires. Unless you are an actual Love God, you will get rejected at some point. Even Love Gods might get rejected if they approach the wrong person whilst in sheep-form. The person rejecting you isn't doing it to hurt you. They're thinking about their own story arc, where they're going to get that magic sword from when the magic sword-shop is closed for a family holiday etc. etc. In fact, if they are actually your friend, rejecting you is probably not something they want to do. They like you, they want to see you happy with the right person / the right people. By definition however, the right person is someone who wants to share your threads as much as you want to share theirs.

'But,' I hear you cry, 'I'm such a nice guy! I would treat her so well!'That's grand. Genuinely, it is brilliant that you are a nice guy. But don't be nice to get a reward. That's not behaviour for a grown human. That's behaviour for a toddler who has to play nicely to get an ice-cream. Once you're grown up, you can be nice just because it's the right thing to do. It's nice to be nice. It's even better to aim higher, to broaden your adjective horizon. Shoot for 'interesting' or 'clever' or 'shed of the year' (you have to be a little wooden for that one). But do it for yourself, before you try to get anyone else involved.

Things might be awkward for a while. That's fine. But please, for the love of all that is cute and fluffy, if you find yourself using the phrase 'Friend-Zone' (or even worse 'Friend-zoning' as a verb), go and have a wee lie down. The 'Friend-Zone' is a little bit icky for several reasons. For one thing, it implies that friendship with the opposite sex is a booby (heh, booby) prize. The 'Friend Zone' is held in such fear and dread that you can only conclude that being friends with women (see***) is some kind of dreadful punishment. Like we are going to tie you to a chair and force you to discuss the relative merits of 500 almost but not quite identical lipsticks. This is not friendship. This is experimental theatre. If your friends are doing this to you, I suggest you get them an agent or a self help book.

Secondly, the 'Friend Zone' reinforces the idea that every boy is entitled to a Princess, they just need to collect all the stars and redeem them at the nearest vendor. Women are not like supermarket loyalty cards: you cannot collect a certain amount of points through kind gestures / buying eggs and then exchange them for coupons / A Dream Relationship. There's no such thing as a 'dream relationship' anyway. Relationships are for two (or more) people. Dreams are just for one.

And it matters, this entitlement complex. It matters because a few months ago a young man in America went on a shooting spree because he couldn't get a girlfriend despite being 'the supreme gentleman'. It matters because memes like the below (trigger warning) exist. Offered friendship by a woman? Yes, 'joking' about sexual violence seems like a proportionate response. I can't think why she didn't want to jump your bones. You seem like such a nice guy.

Not everyone is going to fancy you. If everyone fancied everyone, we would never get anything done. But you miss out on a hell of a lot if you object to a whole group of people being friends with you. So I would like to ditch The Friend Zone in favour of everyone Just Getting Along.

Sound like a plan?

*Other beverages are available**

**Though why you would want to drink anything else is beyond me.

***Insert other pronouns as appropriate, but the loudest voices on the 'Friend Zone' seem to be straight men.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

I'm Anna.
I'm working on being an enigma. Progress so far is minimal.
If you would like to talk to me, you can get me on a.l.ibbotson@gmail.com or I'm on twitter @AnnaIbbotson.
Please only talk to me if you're a human or a robot with a lot of interesting ideas though!